Simon wanted to create and run best-in-class products that can offer you the opportunity to achieve attractive long-term returns, while moderating those ‘bumps in the road’ that can happen at different points in the economic cycle.

Being unconstrained by legacy issues around charges, clients or product design, Downing was able to offer him a platform to launch and manage a suite of funds specifically tailored to meet these objectives.

Importantly, Downing is able to offer the comprehensive infrastructure and support required needed to meet the needs of investors in today’s increasingly complex environment.

The growth and defence components occupy fixed positions in each of the portfolios. This consistency is key and prevents us from making emotionally driven asset allocation bets when under pressure from difficult markets.

The fixed-allocation approach also helps you to meet your clients’ risk tolerances, as we are committed to providing a consistent mix of ‘growth’ and ‘defence’ within each of our funds. By contrast, an actively allocated multi-asset portfolio might hold, say, 70% equities one year, then have 80% exposure the next, and 60% the year after. That can make it difficult for you to select the right product for your clients and be confident that it will remain the right product in the future too. It is notoriously difficult to time the market and so investment managers moving between asset classes can introduce additional timing risk, which can damage your client’s wealth.

Another differentiator is our focus on finding newer, smaller funds and lesser known managers. We do this because we believe they can deliver better future returns. There are several reasons why such funds can outperform their larger competitors. For example, newer managers may be more focused as they build their track record; smaller funds can be easier to run operationally; smaller managers can take larger positions in their favoured stocks, something that can be harder for larger funds to do; and, finally, such funds are also often willing to offer better deals on their charges, which reduces the overall cost of the portfolio.

We also believe that funds of funds are a simpler and more efficient structure than other portfolio propositions, such as Discretionary Fund Management services and Model Portfolio Services, particularly in terms of tax and administration. In respect of capital gains tax, for example, buying and selling funds within a fund of funds has no impact on your clients’ tax affairs, but this is not necessarily the case in a non-unitised portfolio. As well as helping clients reduce their tax complexity, this also frees the portfolio manager to focus purely on the investment considerations of each holding, and not be distracted by any personal tax implications of altering the portfolio.

We believe the VT Downing Fox Funds will help you walk the path that you are expecting to walk down. To do this, we aim to generate strong long-term returns, without dragging your clients through the dramatic ups and downs caused by volatile market conditions.

We only include fund managers within the equity portfolio that we believe can make attractive returns over the long-term. We expect all great fund managers to go through periods of underperformance but do not expect all of the underlying funds to experience highs or lows at the same time. For example, a value manager’s trough can be more than compensated for by a growth manager’s purple patch. This blended approach can be an effective way of benefitting from exceptional managers’ performance over the long-term,  while smoothing out volatility.

The Fox Funds can help you to simplify your business by taking responsibility for the selection and ongoing monitoring of funds. The separation between growth and defence enables you to select the appropriate blend for your clients based on their risk tolerance. By consistently delivering against the chosen strategy, the Fox Funds can help you avoid fighting fires caused by wayward managers not doing what they should do. We believe that this simplification will help the operational side of your business, increase the time you have to spend on other value-adding activities, and, as a result, ultimately enhance the value of your business.

Investing in a fund involves taking on certain risks. The value of your investment may go down so you might get back less than you paid in.

Below is a summary of risks that investors need to understand:

Counterparty risk: the Fund can conclude various transactions with contractual partners. If a contractual partner becomes insolvent, it can no longer or can only partly settle unpaid debts owed to the Fund.

Market risk: external factors can cause an entire asset class to decline in value which would result in a decrease in the value of investments.

Currency risk: as the Fund may invest in overseas securities, movements in exchange rates may, when not hedged, cause the value of your investment to increase or decrease.

Liquidity risk: adverse market conditions may affect the ability to sell certain assets when necessary. Reduced liquidity may have a negative impact on the price of assets.

Capital is at risk: the value of investments and the income derived from them may go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount invested. Please note this is only a brief overview of the risks involved with investing in the VT Downing Fox Funds. The scheme documentation can be found here.

Investments made through the VT Downing Fox Funds are long term and high risk.

Please read the prospectus and key investment documents above for full details of all the risks before investing.